


said my muse to me

by PilotInTheStars



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Authors, Book Festivals, Exes, F/M, Instagram DMs, Jetlag, Left on read, Mermista is a good mother to her pet fish, Sea Hawk texts like a Boomer, Slow Burn, Texting, and they are disaster bisexuals, complicated family relationships, takeout, they technically play footsies, writers!au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-06
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:21:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25113832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PilotInTheStars/pseuds/PilotInTheStars
Summary: Writers!AUSea Hawk and Mermista are published authors when they meet for the first time at a book festival. Writing troubles and a growing relationship ensue.
Relationships: Mermista/Sea Hawk (She-Ra)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 36





	1. Book Festivals and Instagram DMs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mermista meets a certain fellow author at a book festival.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thank you to @sharknana29 who is the Absolute Best! Thank you for your wonderful beta-ing and being my buddy and support as I worked on this. Ly!
> 
> Title comes from Astrophil and Stella 1 by Sir Philip Sidney.
> 
> Seamista Rights.

Mermista was still jet lagged from her flight from San Francisco to New York City and as far as she was concerned, the caffeine from the coffee she had just inhaled could not kick in any faster. 

She had a schedule scribbled somewhere in her backpack for the day. A panel for the festival, a book signing later? She’d have to check again. 

With a sigh, Mermista set her backpack down and fished out the paper. Of course, the panel was now in just a few minutes and there was indeed a book signing later, a table for her and a few other authors out in the main hall. It looked like a fellow author from the panel she was on was also with her at the signing. 

C.E. Hawk.

Their circles had been somewhat similar, yet they hadn’t met before. 

A glance at her phone told her she still has another 45 minutes before the panel, and she picked up her lukewarm coffee and bag and walked over to the line of chairs that waited for the authors. 

She sat there half asleep for a long time, until she got a notification on her phone, her group chat of friends from college. 

**Bow: How’s it going?**

**Adora: ^^! Hope it’s all going well.**

Despite her exhaustion, a smile was to be found on the corner of Mermista’s mouth. 

**Mermista: good. jetlagged but that’s what coffee is for.**

She sighed and closed out, going to check her email when someone stood next to her. 

“Anyone sitting here?” 

His outfit was ridiculous, but she couldn’t get over the bandana he had tied around his neck. He looked like some cowboy in the west. It was an odd look compared with his stupidly tall boots and blue blazer. 

Mermista paused, morning sleepiness making everything fuzzy. 

“Uh…. no. Not at the moment. You can sit here if you want.”

The man nodded and sat down next to her. 

Mermista couldn’t stop staring at him. If her father was here, he’d scold her daughter for her constant rudeness.

She shook her head and turned back to her phone, quickly typing in her passcode and checking her email again. But something was nagging her.  _ She had clearly seen this dude somewhere.  _

Shit. Was this- 

“Hey, are you C.E. Hawk?”

This somehow got even more embarrassing than before. But hey, she wasn’t able to know every single author on the face of the planet. They hadn’t crossed paths before, only heard about each other. 

Unless… they  _ had  _ met and she had simply forgotten.

“I am.”

_ She supposed that she should probably introduce herself as well.  _

“Uh, Mermista Pathak.” She extended a hand. 

“It is wonderful to meet you.”

Mermista nodded.

“Uhh, this is kind of weird, but what name do you like to go by?” She wasn’t sure if she should or shouldn’t feel embarrassed that she didn’t know what the two initials stood for…

He shook his head overdramatically again.  _ Not a big deal.  _ “Just a formality,” he said. “I normally go by Sea Hawk!” He said his name so loudly that multiple other people working nearby all stared. 

Mermista felt a flush rise to her face.

“Good to know.”

* * *

“Hey, I think we’re sitting next to each other for the book signing.”

Sea Hawk looked up from his pen and saw Mermista there and his heart did cartwheels that he couldn’t explain. Or rather he could, because his brain had made him fall practically in love on sight more times than he could count. 

_ He was an idiot.  _ The banners behind them spoke well enough. How did he miss her name and the picture of her latest book behind him? 

“We are! What a coincidence, truly.” If he took a breath, maybe his stomach would stop doing belly flops. 

Mermista slung her teal backpack over the back of her chair and Sea Hawk caught a glimpse of the multitude of pins and buttons, lots of undersea animals and book promo. 

“Have you been to this event before?” she asked. 

“I have not. Haven’t been invited before.”

“Ah well, guess we’re both in the same boat.”

Sea Hawk saw her take a glance over at the banner sitting behind him.

“You just released a new book, right?”

Sea Hawk tried to be nonchalant, waving a hand in the air. “A couple months ago. And you?”

“New mystery novel out in October,” she said calmly. She tapped a button on her backpack, with a release date on it. It was also featured on the banner behind her. 

She nudged a cardboard box under the table with her foot. “Have a box of advanced reader copies here.”

There was awkward silence. 

“I’ll be excited to read it.” 

Mermista’s eyes met his. “Oh, thanks. I appreciate it. Excited to read yours too.” 

_ Why was his heart pounding?  _ He fidgeted with his pen while they waited, neither of them could find much to say before the actual signing started and the two of them were too busy to engage in any casual conversation. 

Before it ended, Sea Hawk felt something nudge his foot. He took a glance under the table and saw Mermista had nudged a copy of her book towards him. She didn’t look towards him. 

Before she left, he pushed one of his books her way.

* * *

Their paths didn’t cross for the rest of the book festival. No panels or signings together. They didn’t even see each other in the main hall. 

At the end of it all, Mermista got a cab to the airport and got through security faster than she thought. 

If Mermista had a sixth sense, it was to find coffee somewhere and that sense worked out for her now. After that, she found her gate and slumped down into a seat. She just wanted to head home and sleep. 

She sighed and checked Instagram. The first thing she saw was a message notification. 

**theseahawk: Glad to have met you this weekend.**

Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, about to respond. She hesitated. 

**mermistapathak: nice meeting you too.**

She paused for a moment, then typed again.

**mermistapathak: you live in california right? maybe there’s a time we could meet again.**

She was going to regret that later. What things didn’t she regret later though?

**mermistapathak: i know some other writers too who live around here.**

Mermista quickly exited the app before she made even worse decisions. She just wanted to talk to him again and she didn’t know why. She managed to keep Sea Hawk out of her mind during her flight from New York to San Francisco, yet she couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed when there wasn’t a response back. 

She shook it away. It didn’t matter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed.


	2. Jetlag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mermista and Sea Hawk are both home from the book festival and find themselves texting each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A special thank you to @sharknana29 for beta-ing! <3
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

Mermista woke up and uncharacteristically checked her phone right away. Nothing. 

She wasn’t disappointed. She wasn’t. That would be ridiculous. 

Near midday sunshine streamed through the crack between her blue curtains and she groaned.

Mermista stretched and got out of bed, surveying her room. She’d left it a mess as she had quickly packed for the book festival in New York and hadn’t given much thought to unpacking when she had gotten back last night. Her suitcase was sitting by the door and she shoved it aside with her hip as she went to the kitchenette of her apartment. She probably wouldn’t unpack it for another couple weeks anyway. 

The fish in her aquarium ate the food she put in the water quickly and she hoped Adora actually did come over to feed them while Mermista was gone. Upon closer inspection, they all looked happy and well fed. 

She found her laptop in the recesses of her traveling backpack, propping it up on her lap. Emails, more emails. She sighed. 

Nothing was truly of interest to her. 

She looked out her window. You could only really see the wall of another building, but if you stood at the corner and angled yourself just right, you could get a look at the street and everything it contained. The city was as it usually was. Everything was as it usually was. 

Just _what_ had gotten into her?

Mermista groaned and shut her laptop a little too forcefully. There was no reason to be out of bed this early. 

She stumbled her way back to bed, making sure her room was as dark as possible, but before she shut her eyes, she reached over and reached around for her phone. 

No new notification. 

She sighed and rolled over, pulling the covers tighter around herself. 

_Whatever._

* * *

Sea Hawk stared mortified at his phone.

_He hadn’t expected for Mermista to respond._

He quickly slid into the Uber, absentmindedly giving the driver the right information. 

One more glance at his phone and he quickly exited the app, though he desperately wanted to respond right away. 

Sea Hawk got to his tiny apartment and unlocked the door with his keys. Everything was in order and yet the place was uncharacteristically bare. 

He’d just been through a breakup, a pretty shitty one at that. The memory of moving out of Falcon’s place New Years Day came to his mind. He’d felt pretty terrible for months, in a dramatic moment he’d sworn off romance forever. 

_Everyone knew that wasn’t to last._

And then Mermista came along, who had to be the most beautiful person he’d ever seen in his life.

No, he wasn’t in love after meeting her three days ago and spending an hour and a half signing books at the same table. 

But it felt like it. 

If Sea Hawk had a nickel for every time a past lover or partner had told him he was a ridiculous romantic, he’d probably have more money than he’d ever need. 

He reached into the back pocket of his jeans and opened up to their chat again. His fingers hovered over the keyboard of his phone: 

**theseahawk: INDEED! I would be happy to meet other writers. Just let me know! THX.**

He quickly shut his phone off, chucking it onto the sofa. 

_That went well, didn’t it?_ He thought so, at least. 

-

Mermista sat back on her ratty couch, fingers resting on her keyboard as she proofread what seemed like her thousandth email of the day. _She really should have taken a look at them over the weekend. She couldn’t wait to be done with them._

She gave a yawn and looked at her phone. 

_Sea Hawk had responded._

Fuck. 

Mermista quickly picked up her phone. 

_Who typed in all caps in this modern age?_

**mermistapathak: glad to hear**

Sea Hawk responded rather quickly. 

**theseahawk: HOW ARE YOU? I hope it was a safe flight!!!**

Mermista groaned. _Did he text like this all the time?_

**mermistapathak: it was. long flight from ny to ca but eh**

**theseahawk: GLAD TO HEAR**

Mermista took a long pause, thinking about what to say, and then grimacing again at what she typed. _Was that all she could say?_

**mermistapathak: how was your flight?**

**theseahawk: Good! An ADVENTURE for the ages!**

He really did text like a grandmother. And yet why did she find it slightly charming? She really hated that. 

Mermista put her phone in her pajama pocket and shut off her laptop. Emails could wait for the morning. She was jetlagged and tired and she didn’t want to think about professionalism anymore. 

She got to the bathroom and braided her hair, then responded. 

**mermistapathak: an adventure? did something go wrong at the airport?**

She brushed her teeth as she watched him typing at the bottom of the screen. Her heart pounded in an embarrassing way. 

**theseahawk: ANYTHING can be an adventure! You just have to put your heart into it.**

Now he sounded like an inspirational poster in a middle school classroom. 

**mermistapathak: well glad nothing went wrong**

**theseahawk: ME AS WELL**

Mermista turned her lamp on and climbed into bed. She clicked on his profile. They had followed each other for a while- most authors did, but she hadn’t ever seen his profile before, except for the occasional photos he posted. 

Sea Hawk didn’t seem to post frequently, just occasional photos of a small little town in California where he lived, somewhere near the coast. 

Lots of pictures of boats. Everything from the occasional speeder boat docked to a little dinghy that looked like it might sink if anyone sat in it. 

He had two Instagram highlights. One for about 12 pictures of campfires, the other with only one picture for actually promo-ing his new book. 

A little strange for a YA author. 

Mermista kept scrolling farther down, until she was well into his posts from early last year. A notification popped up on the top of the screen. 

**theseahawk: Do you like the ocean???**

_Was that some weird version of a pick up line or a “get to know you” question?_ Mermista had no clue. 

**mermistapathak: ya, you?**

**mermistapathak: tho i kind of figured, “sea hawk” and all.**

That was a better response than admitting she’d just stalked his whole Instagram page. _She never did that, so why had she just done that?_

_No harm in that,_ she told herself, _everyone and their mother has casually scrolled through someone’s entire page._

**theseahawk: INDEED! The ocean is an adventure!**

This dude liked adventure. 

**mermistapathak: yep. sorry, still kind of jetlagged, i think i might need to sleep. gn**

Mermista couldn’t help but feel herself flush as she shut off her phone and practically threw it on her nightstand. It was fine, she’d check in the morning. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed!


	3. Left On Read

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mermista is a disaster and she 100% DOES NOT care about Sea Hawk texting her back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thank you to @sharknana29 for beta-ing!
> 
> I hope you enjoy!
> 
> (The Princess Alliance has a group chat and it's gay and I hope that I have gotten that across.)

Mermista’s relationship with her father was... 

Complicated. 

That’s all she could really say about it. And yet, ever since she was young, people would give her sympathetic glances during conversations. She always thought that was pretty bullshit. 

Their relationship wasn’t  _ bad,  _ and it wasn’t  _ great.  _ It just… existed. She didn’t need their sympathetic glances or their "I'm so sorry"'s. She was fairly fed up with it all. 

She set her phone down on the couch and sighed. 

That phone call could have gone a lot better. You could say that about most interactions between them. 

It really was something from a story, some character’s tragic backstory in a Hallmark Christmas Special. Mom just up and left one day, dad left on his own to raise his daughter. 

Mermista sometimes wondered if her mother ever walked into a bookstore and recognized her daughter’s name, picked up the book and looked at it. Did her mother ever think about her like she did? 

But those were thoughts reserved for late, lonely nights. 

She sighed and grabbed the bag from the drugstore and headed to the tiny bathroom in her apartment. 

She had first dyed her hair as a new high schooler, walking to the corner store and buying bleach and hair dye herself. After over a decade of it, the routine was ingrained into her head. She could have done it in her sleep. 

Around midnight she washed the dye out of her hair and went to grab her phone. There was a notification. 

Glimmer: hey look at this phrog bow found 

Mermista opened the chat, seeing a picture Glimmer had taken of Bow kneeling at a distance next to a frog at a park. 

Adora: Aw

Catra: what’s their name?

Glimmer: gregorny 

Mermista couldn’t help but grin a bit. Felt like the old days. She slipped her phone into the pocket of her pajamas shorts and went to grab her laptop from the couch. There were a few emails she had been putting off replying to. 

* * *

Mermista woke up at some odd hour the next day and took off for the coffee shop down the road, wanting to get out of her apartment and out and about. 

Her usual corner was vacant and after ordering her usual, she set up her station. More emails, what was new, and a couple hundred words on a document with an idea she was trying out. 

Would that idea ever work out? She didn’t know, but it was worth a shot. 

A loud slam from the door at the front of the coffee shop startled her and broke her concentration. That was alright, she probably needed a break anyways. 

She found herself on Instagram, her go to when she needed a distraction. 

_ She’d been tagged in something. _

She clicked on it. 

A rare post from Sea Hawk’s account, featuring a stack of books he was currently reading. Including the ARC she had given him at the book festival.

She stared, wide eyed. She couldn’t help it.  _ She didn’t think he’d actually read it.  _

Now Mermista had to say something again. If she was going to be honest, she had wanted to message him again, but it wasn’t like she would ever want to admit that. 

At first glance they just seemed so different. Most people who typed like Mermista’s grandmother over Facebook Messenger she wouldn’t want to associate with again. 

_ So why did she want to see him again so badly? _

It didn’t make sense. 

She opened up their chat, which left off on the quick message he had sent, the quick “GOODNIGHT!”

They hadn’t sent anything for two weeks. 

Mermista took a deep breath as her fingers danced over the keyboard.

**mermistapathak: hey! saw that you were reading, or on your way to reading my arc. i really appreciate it. i really hope you enjoy it.**

She paused. 

**mermistapathak: been busy with logistical stuff with my book’s release soon, but i am looking forward to reading your new book too.**

Mermista sighed and turned back to her word document. 

-

Mermista got a response that afternoon.

**theseahawk: I FINISHED IT YESTERDAY! IT WAS TRULY GREAT!**

Mermista flushed. She picked up her phone. 

**mermistapathak: thanks, i appreciate it a lot. there’s so much that leads up to a book release, i’ll be glad when it’s over.**

She watched as he typed a response. 

**theseahawk: WELL I’m sure it will be WELL-RECEIVED! It was great!!**

_ Don’t text back right away,  _ she thought, forcing herself to go to another app for a minute. She flipped back. 

**mermistapathak: that means a lot to me. this was kind of the hardest thing i’ve ever written. glad to know people like it.**

Sea Hawk left a heart on her message. She waited for him to type but he didn’t.  _ Why was she disappointed?  _

Mermista shook it away, she didn’t care,  _ she didn’t.  _

She looked around her apartment, at the laundry basket of clothes that needed to be folded or hung up, at her rather empty kitchen, and decided that she needed to get out of the house. 

* * *

45 minutes later Mermista had more Thai takeout from the place down the road that any one person could eat in an evening, but she decided that given the current state of things, it was necessary. 

She set up her typical self care as of late, her laptop propped up on the edge of her couch as she watched X Files, her plate of food in her lap. Whether it was self care or an attempt to avoid her problems, she didn’t know. She didn’t need to dwell on that.

_ But just what had gotten into her?  _ She wasn’t mooning over some dude she had met  _ once  _ at a book festival, who typed in all caps and wore thigh high boots and bandanas on the daily. 

But then why did she feel like this?

Mermista sighed. Maybe if neither of them texted again, everything would go back to normal. But did she want it to? 

She didn’t know. 

The thoughts lingered on her mind as she finished dinner and put her leftovers in her battered fridge, showered, and got dressed for bed. Sleep evaded her that evening, she instead listened to the noises of the city- the cars racing by and the occasional sirens. 

_ It was whatever. It was fine. She wasn’t thinking about him anymore, and he was definitely not thinking about her, wherever he was.  _

Not at all. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> They are disaster bisexuals. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed.


End file.
